


there was an echo far and faint, beneath the air remained

by Buttercup_ghost



Series: and don't forget your paracetamol smile [2]
Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Bittersweet, Coping, Depression, Emotional Hurt, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Introspection, M/M, Memory Alteration, Mental Health Issues, New Dangan Ronpa V3 Spoilers, Other, Post-Canon, Post-Game(s), Post-New Dangan Ronpa V3, its been a while do I still need to tag that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 15:08:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20438057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buttercup_ghost/pseuds/Buttercup_ghost
Summary: a fever billowed with the wind, and i obeyed the sky thereini build a constellation lair out of the moles that hovered theremake a pardon of what knows and climb up in me.





	there was an echo far and faint, beneath the air remained

In her weaker moments, she likes to pretend that she gave it to her.

Worn, like her soul, now, the pumpkin mocks her. She presses her face into it, inhales the faded scents. She likes to imagine it smells like her, tries to fabricate her fragrance in her mind. Did she smell like faint roses, lingering in the air, so fragile it might vanish? Did she smell like paper and ink, crisp, like lemon grass? Or was she longing for something where nothing was there, the scent of nothing invading her nostrils—her hair devoid of flavor? 

It’s something she can’t remember, yet feels like she desperately should. Like she should recall it, a memory just out of reach, of burying her face into her neck, clutching her tight as if she’d vanish, her hair tickling her nose. It’s something she doesn’t deserve. It’s something she won’t ever have, never.

Sometimes, it feels like a betrayal, to feel this way.

Stars burn bright in her eyes, as she glances up at the sky he loved. He hugged her, once, clutched her close, even if it was in fear. It was warm, and nice—yet undeniably wrong.

It would be easy to love him.

She doesn’t. 

It hurts, burns like the light of a incandescent bulb, fairy lights missing glass, she grasps in her hands tightly. Betrayal, acidic and bitter.

She looks back, and realizes he never said he loved her, too.

Maybe that’s okay.

It’s all flip flop, now, anyways. Saihara sighs, looking at the stars and thinks of the universe, thinks of him, all wistful and longing. It only leaves a bitter tastes in her mouth. 

Bitter, like black coffee. 

She has stopped adding sugar, forcing down her morning cup through gritted teeth. 

It hurts.

It hurts more than anything, this bitterness.

She breathes in, repeating words she didn’t believe. 

“It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”

The pumpkin plushie is still just a hollow comfort, like the lies she hated so much.

It—

It isn’t okay.

_But— _

“It’ll be better tomorrow.” Her voice affirms her thoughts.

She wants it to be better. She wants to _ feel _better.

She’s too afraid to truly grasp onto that hope, lest the burning stars char her hand like her birthday candles.

It’s been two years since the game.

Seventeen is as sickly as the rest, too close to adult, too far from child, for her comfort.

* * *

Again, she doesn’t sleep. She can hear Himiko snoring on the bed next to her, and she curls around her memento further. It’s a weaker moment, tonight, where she clutches it tight to her chest as if it’s precious, instead of a bargain bin special, nearly trash to its creators, dime a dozen. Her tears are stifled, dying sobs trapped in her throat, like a bird in a cage. Like they were, back then, like they still might be, now, even. They die off before they get a chance to live, a hopeless situation, fiction and reality mixing in her mind. Sometimes, she forgets where she is, who she is. Back at the academy. Back at her falsehood soaked orphanage. Back at the agency that never was, blood on her hands and a glint in her eyes.

And yet sometimes she dreams of something completely different, of coffee dates and flower shops. Dreams of handmade plushies and a world that might be her past. She’s not sure if it would be worse if it was, or better. The ache in her chest is still so persistent.

She used to love coffee, with her.

It’s wishful thinking, probably. Just a fabrication, her lips on her own. A dream. Nothing more.

Kaede had tasted like chewed up gum, stale, rotten—all wrong.

Himiko still breathes peacefully besides her. She wonders how she can sleep with such an expression, but she supposed that’s just how she was. How Tenko forged her to be, with her kind words and loud smile. How Angie crafted her from marble, as if she was made of clay, mailable, a patchwork arts and crafts project.

She is stronger than her. It stings like a viper’s venom. 

The alarm clock ticks down, still. Saihara rustles in his sleep, restless. His dreams steal the galaxy from hers, replacing it with melodies worn out and tasteless. Clay. The red burns and blurs in her sleep ached eyes, steadily blinking in her tired vision. It’s not enough. It’ll never be enough. She can taste dust on her tongue, as she inhales.

It’s fitting.

It’s one of those nights. They seem to happen a lot. 

“It’s okay,” she whispers to the moonlight, shinning in a way that should remind her of him, but doesn’t, the sound of piano notes drifting in her empty, hollow, full, _full_ head, noisy and muted. Clair de Luna was always such a pretty piece, and it clogs up her chest with liquid in her lungs, drowning her. She hates it.

“It’s okay,” she says, “it’s okay.”

It isn’t.

Another lie added to the pile.

* * *

Himiko's lips taste like apples and strawberries. Faded, a hint that manages to be overpowering, suffocating. It hurts her waterlogged chest, as she inhales. She smells faintly of dirt and grim, dust settled into her mouth from nights spent on the cold floor. Dust like the residue of her chalk-like pills. They breathe together, and even that is painful, when their lungs ache with the past, a weight settled between them. She wants to say she loves her, but she can’t. She’s been trying to be honest.

It’s as bitter as everything else, even as Himiko's sweet lip balm settles into her chapped lips crevices, burning in every tear, invading her cracks. It isn’t a lie, to say she loves her. But it isn’t the truth, either. It’s something better left unsaid, settled between these moments like smoke. It’s okay. It’s just something in between, an empty space of grey. It’s easier that way. She traces a map of her freckles as if it’s a constellation, each a star that painted a picture of something grander. Himiko traces her scars as if they were curling words sprawled upon a page, as if they were beautiful. They lie and say it means nothing, as they lay together, curled up with her as if she too was a plushie. She was just as fake as the wishful fantasies she thought about, the orange craddled in her arms, just a stitched up, patchwork mess. The tear in her pillow mirrors her heart.

Saihara never kisses her, only holds her hand too tight, as if he’s afraid to let go. She stands stiff, resisting the urge to rip her hand away, to yank and run. She’d be disappointed, she thinks. In the both of them. It burns acidic once more. They turn traitors to themselves with a gentle sort of reverence.

The love suffocates her all the same.

The succulents grow nicely, resilient. She thinks they’re the ugliest thing she’s ever seen.

Saihara got them for her birthday, after her garden died. She takes care of them. She wishes she wouldn’t. 

She knows she always will.

* * *

She hardly smiles, still. All the smiles in her memory burn a bitter hue.

In her dreams, her hair slips through her fingers. Her lips always pulled up in a mockery, the song she hates the most repeating, repeating. Always repeating.

She tried to learn piano, once. She made a mess of the notes, the right sounds in the wrong place, off time.

She never did time things right.

Again, the thought comes: he never did said I love you, back to her. Her game of telephone halted before it began. He only ever let his lips curl into a crescent moon and told her to live, to find someone to love when she escaped this place—he was about to die, and he knew it.

This moment burns in her, a smile soaked in blood. He is a star within her stomach, and she is the fluid in her chest. A liar like all the rest in the end, yet she can’t help but think—that smile looked so genuine.

Her smile looked so genuine, too.

So why? It burn, aching dull within her heart. Why, why, _why_? Such a dull word, just a simple, singular syllable, yet it replays like the soundtrack of her life. The infinite universe plays cruel tricks on her. Nothing is sacred. Angie’s god, moltened and promised, was nothing more than a lie.

In a way, Kokichi was the most honest of them all.

_Every single one of them was nothing more than a lie._

There was no savior to come for them. There was no salvation, not within their reach. Not within their hold. Their arms can not undo the damage, they cannot fix themselves, when all their broken little pieces and shards are too sharp, cut stingingly into their palms when they reach. This world was fucked up, and broken. There was no one to fix it, and all the ones who tried were buried underneath her feet. The bones all snap beneath the gravity of it all. 

Why didn’t he trust her, to help take the load off of him, to help him at all, in anyway she could? The small ways, the big ways—his smile said faith, but his pain was still hidden away. It looked like a painting within her dreams, to beautiful to be real, and her ethereal light backlit his form, red eyes locked on target, their two forms swaying a mockery of dance. No one came to her, and she was left alone as they struggled. She couldn’t save them, even as she desperately reached out, a cry on her lips.

There was no such thing as saviors, in this world.

Only martyrs, shaped like moons and starlight, too painful to bare, too painful to look at. Silent, with smiles, so different from her cold looks. The only difference between them, were that two didn’t believe in the lie of angel shaped people, pulling them up with a smile too wide to be real. Two of them didn’t believe in saviors, even as they tried so hard to be one. It only ever resulted in rust.

The knowledge is a burden.

Her heart rots. 

(And that’s okay, too, even if it really isn’t.)

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this quickly as a semi-vent last night & polished it up today bc I was Feeling Bad (Tm) and thinking of maki post-game, so here we be


End file.
